Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged a man in connection with smuggling 14 undocumented immigrants, killing five of them when he drove into a tree while evading Falfurrias police.

Manuel Rendon-Lucas told federal agents he was to be paid $250 per person for driving the immigrants to Houston from a McAllen house, where he'd met them, an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint states.

Rendon said he worked with a man he knew only as “Tony” to pick up the undocumented immigrants at the McAllen house. Tony then guided Rendon and the immigrants through the brush on foot. They then got into the vehicle that would later crash.

Rendon was driving a 2004 Chevy Blazer packed with 14 passengers that hit a tree in Falfurrias along U.S. 281 on Saturday night, just a few miles north of the U.S. Border Patrol immigration checkpoint in Brooks County.

Tony, who was in the front seat of the Blazer, had directed Rendon to speed away from the police, Rendon told federal authorities. Tony later was identified as one of the five people who died at the scene of the crash.

Rendon was charged under the federal smuggling law. Authorities said they have determined he and Tony were in the U.S. illegally.

Carlos Garcia, district attorney for Brooks and Jim Wells counties, said Tuesday that the driver also could face state felony murder charges because the deaths occurred during the commission of another felony — either evading police in a motor vehicle or smuggling.

In addition, the driver could be charged with aggravated assault in connection with the immigrants who were injured.

Federal agents have interviewed four of the passengers, including one who said the group included two people from Nicaragua, six from Honduras, one from El Salvador, one from Ecuador and two from Mexico.

One immigrant, Carlos Rafael Barajona-Perez, said he was from Nicaragua and headed to Houston and later Miami, according to the affidavit. He had to pay $2,000 to be smuggled into the U.S. and would pay another $1,000 when he arrived in Miami.

He said the group had walked through the brush in South Texas for two nights before reaching Falfurrias.

Jose Fredi Cortez-Perdomo of Honduras told federal agents he crossed illegally into the U.S. on Nov. 10 near Hidalgo, then was moved over the next two weeks between Rio Grande City and Mission, staying in various houses and a hotel, before walking through the brush and winding up in the crash Saturday night.

The South Texas region and Brooks County in particular have become one of the busiest areas for human smuggling in recent years.